This Is Just Beyond Belief. What An Unremitting Fiasco. We Need An Audit of the NEHRS Pronto!

THE cost of Queensland's disastrous health payroll system is set to top $1.2 billion by 2017.

But Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has warned that estimate is a "bare-bones price" that does not include any contingency funding should anything go wrong.

Contingency provisions for repairs could add an extra 30 per cent to the $1.253 billion cost.

It also fails to include the impacts of Fringe Benefits Tax payable on wage overpayments, which could be as high as $110.4 million.

Even more concerning, the Workbrain and SAP systems will no longer be supported from 2014-15 and the former Bligh government failed to set aside any cash for the needed upgrade or re-implementation.

That cost has not yet even been quantified.

The shocking cost is detailed in a wide-ranging audit tabled in State Parliament this afternoon which has, for the first time, given the true picture of the bill taxpayers face to ensure health workers are paid properly.

Since March 2010, Queensland Health's payroll fiasco, one of the Bligh government's biggest disasters, left thousands of health workers underpaid, overpaid or unpaid, often for weeks on end.

The system was originally expected to cost about $40 million to implement.

I am sorry - this debacle really does leave me just open-mouthed in amazement!

The cost blowout has clearly meant health services in Queensland have been curtailed as a result of the vast an inexcusable overspend. I know setting up a payroll system in a complex Health Bureaucracy can be hard - but surely not this hard.

As far as the NEHRS is concerned what is shown is just how useful a proper Audit can be to sort out what is what and just how exposed everyone is.

If ever there was a program in need of the same sort of review it is the NEHRS!